Europe’s center right won’t expel Orbán, leader says

Hungary’s combative, anti-immigrant Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will stay in the European People’s Party, despite being accused by the European Parliament of trampling on democratic freedoms and flouting EU norms, the center-right alliance’s president, Joseph Daul, said Wednesday.

Just before an EPP meeting in Salzburg ahead of an EU summit, an exasperated Daul said he had been fielding questions about Orbán and his Fidesz party for years.

“The press can’t force me to throw out Viktor Orbán,” Daul said at a joint news conference with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. “We have democracy in our party, rule of law, we have our freedom and we have rules.”